Thursday, August 14

legs in the way

I happened upon a radio show this week where folks were calling in with their lamest excuse for not having sex with someone. One guy said he once told a woman that the battery in his prosthetic leg was dead.

The show's DJs found this fascinating, peppering him with questions like, Do you need your prosthetic leg to be charged for sex?, Do you wear your prosthetic during sex? and, If you don't wear it, do you fall off the bed?

The caller made it clear that not only was a full charge not necessary, but neither was the leg when it comes to happenings in the bedroom.

And for those of you who might be considering using this post in lieu of a bedtime story for your children, you may want to reconsider.

According to a statistic I ran across recently, quite a few people don't need or use their prosthetics for anything after a while. I don't remember the actual statistic or where I read it, but that's why I'm a writer and not a statistician.

I was relieved to hear this, actually. As a lifelong prosthetic deviant, I didn't want to think I was the only one who's fake arm was packed away at the back of a closet.

I've tried to wear a prosthetic arm for various reasons over the years--much like one wears orthodontics--hoping it will somehow improve appearance or social prospects.

Ironically, I called my first prosthetic arm my 'Helper' though I can't remember anything it actually helped me with. My mom had to bribe me to go to occupational therapy, where I learned to slowly place toy blocks on top of one another with the Helper, like a tiny crane. Unfortunately it was way more efficient and faster to do twice the work with my good arm. Even as I write this post, one hand sprints around the keyboard, a typing prosthetic still a very distant invention.

Fake body parts are certainly no friend of lovers. A boyfriend of my mid-twenties told me that my prosthetic arm creeped him out. And I'm pretty sure getting intimate with prosthetics is likely to end the night in the ER.

OneArmGirl